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David Campos for assembly, Wendy Aragon for City College board, soda, Muni money and the anti-speculation tax round out a controversial list of election 2014 ENDORSEMENTS. Plus: Yarrr, it's the Treasure Island Music Fest! And a new book collects George Kuchar's shouts and murmurs. Articles Online | Digital Edition

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Normally the sound of 20 or so artists rattling and spraying aerosol cans would be quickly followed by the sound of sirens. But Sat/19 the fades went up with gusto.

Artists tagged free standing art boards at Precita Park for the Urban Youth Arts Festival, an event that brings the ultimate underground art into a safe space. Attendees munched on burgers and listened to some good tunes at the festival, which is now in its 18th year.

The name "Beach Boys" can refer to either of two bands. The first is the happy-go-lucky surf rock band that does songs about cars and California, led by the conservative Mike Love; the second is one of the most audacious and avant-garde bands of the psychedelic era, led by the mad Zen master Brian Wilson. Though most of the music-listening world knows them primarily as the former, the latter has proven far more influential, pushing the Beatles' creativity to breaking point out of rivalry as well as serving as a major touchstone for the last decade or so of indie rock.Read more »

Jimmy Cliffis a goddamn maniac. It's about 45 minutes into his 90-minute set at the Fillmore on Saturday night [July 19], and while the sheer volume of ganja smoke in the packed room is making real movement — beyond the standard shuffle/sidestep, white reggae fan head-bob, and occasional 30-second pogo accompanied by the triumphant fist-in-the-air move — seem an insurmountable challenge for most everyone on the dancefloor, 66-year-old Jimmy Cliff is onstage in matching bright yellow-and-red pants, a robe, and a hat, quite literally running circles around everyone. Read more »

“We stopped checking for monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us,” reads a quote often misattributed to the Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight. The presenters at July 14’s "BAASICS.5: Monsters" event at ODC Theater capitalized on this concept, examining both modern monsters (though not “cars and corn syrup,” as one emcee mentioned at the beginning of the event) and monsters of yore.

In past years, the organization has explored provocative topics such as the future (more weighted toward a possible uprising of robots rather than the nagging question “What am I going to do with my life?”) and psychiatric and neurologic disorders by juxtaposing science and art. It’s easy to find the right balance between the two for these past themes, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this year’s event.

Digging deep during the height of summertime fun and frivolity, we Guardianistas showed up in force last night for another lively and informative edition of our biweekly radio show, Alternative Ink, on BFF.fm. Listen to the podcast here (but don’t be fooled by the first minute from a past show, it’s a false front we used to hide this week’s treasure).Read more »

Ok Go’s catalog is the sonic equivalent of Fruit Loops. Bright, fun, tasty, and far from satisfying or substantive. They are also one of our generation’s greatest bands. Because what Ok Go lacks in musical imagination and originality, they make up for tenfold with the way they have revolutionized and thoroughly dominated the art of the music video.Read more »

California Controller candidate Betty Yee, a San Francisco Democrat, will officially square off against Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican, in the November runoff election after rival Democrat John Perez today called off a recount request. Perez finished in third place, just 481 votes behind Yee.Read more »

There’s a commonality to a large segment of New Zealand music, much of it with a dubbed-out vibe that one would expect from an island nation. But there’s also an underlying fierceness to it. Karoline Tamati, aka Ladi6, represents this dichotomy well, and her blend of hip-hop and modern soul will be in the Bay Area for the first time this weekend, with shows at Brick and Mortar in the city on Saturday and at the New Parish in Oakland on Sunday.

The lifelong musician started playing music at a young age and was smitten with hip-hop as a teenager when she formed Sheelahroc with her cousin and a friend at 16 years old. She found her singing voice shortly afterward and hasn’t stopped singing. Read more »

Dear readers! In case none of your coworkers has made any kind of Dilbert-ready joke by the water cooler yet today, let us fill you in: It's Friday.

And woof, did this week feel a little long to anyone else? Perhaps because the news is filled with horrendous, tragic, apparently senseless events? I'm not one for the "waah, why do news outlets report on so much bad stuff when there's good stuff in the world" mentality — you should be spurred to anger/sadness/feeling by reading about the state of the world, that's how change happens.Read more »

The November ballot is shaping into a housing supply theory showdown, and yesterday’s [Thu/17] Board of Supervisors Rules Committee hearing was the first round.

The committee hosted two hearings on rival housing proposals for the November ballot: Sup. Jane Kim’s City Housing Balance Requirement and Mayor Ed Lee’s Build Housing Now initiative. The two purport to set similar goals for building affordable housing, but Lee’s proposal contains a poison pill that would invalidate Kim's measure. Read more »

So another scheme -- in a long and rich history of such schemes -- is attempting to break California into more digestible parts, and gaining national attention. Venture capitalist Tim Draper's Six Californias is all but on the ballot, attempting to rechristen the Bay Area as Silicon Valley. Good luck with that! Read more »